was an important and innovative

Japanese poet Japanese poetry is poetry typical of Japan, or written, spoken, or chanted in the Japanese language, which includes Old Japanese, Early Middle Japanese, Late Middle Japanese, and Modern Japanese, as well as poetry in Japan which was written in th ...

, who compiled the ''

Kin'yō Wakashū The , sometimes abbreviated as ''Kin'yōshū'', is the fifth Japanese imperial anthology of waka whose two drafts were finished in 1124 and 1127. It was compiled at the behest of the Retired Emperor Shirakawa, by Minamoto no Shunrai (~1055–1 ...

''. He was the son of Minamoto no Tsunenobu (1016–1097); holder of the second rank in court and of the position of Grand Counsellor). Shunrai was favored by

Emperor Go-Sanjo The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

and to a lesser degree

Emperor Shirakawa was the 72nd emperor of Japan,Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 白河天皇 (72)/ref> according to the traditional order of succession. Shirakawa's reign lasted from 1073 to 1087. Genealogy Before his ascension to the Chrysanthemum T ...

; in no small part for political reasons. At this time, the

Fujiwara family The was a powerful family of imperial regents in Japan, descending from the Nakatomi clan and, as legend held, through them their ancestral god Ame-no-Koyane. The Fujiwara prospered since ancient times and dominated the imperial court until th ...

dominated the country, and its branch, the

Rokujō family The Rokujō family () was a poetically conservative faction in the Japanese Imperial court, founded by Fujiwara no Akisue (1055–1123 CE); it was the first clan to specialize in attaining power and influence via success in poetry, and was orig ...

, similarly dominated the court poetry scene; by favoring their rivals, the Emperors could thus strike back. Although Shunrai was passed over to compile the ''

Goshūi Wakashū :''"The language of poetry should be like brocade and the feeling deeper than the ocean."'' -from Michitoshi's Preface The , sometimes abbreviated as ''Goshūishū'', is an imperial anthology of Japanese waka compiled in 1086 at the behest of E ...

'', Shunrai's angry polemical ''Nan Goshūi'' ("Errors in the ''Goshūishū''") appears to have somehow convinced Shirakawa to have Shunrai compile the next

imperial anthology Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor/empress, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * Im ...

, the ''

''. This

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and g ...

, when completed, embroiled Shunrai in dispute, and his ''Kin'yo Wakashū'' was especially criticized with various uncomplimentary nicknames; Brower and Miner mention that one critic, Fujiwara no Akinaka (

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

1100-1125) wrote a now-lost ten-part work called the ''Ryōgyokushū'' ("Collection of Genuine Jewels") which did nothing but mock and criticize the ''Kin'yō Wakashū''. In 1113, Toshiyori wrote the poetic treatise known as "Toshiyori zuinō (俊頼髄脳)." Zuinō, which is also seen in the title of

Fujiwara no Kintō , also known as Shijō-dainagon, was a Japanese poet, admired by his contemporaries "... Fujiwara no Kinto (966–1008), the most admired poet of the day." pg 283 of Donald Keene's '' Seeds in the Heart''. and a court bureaucrat of the Heian ...

's poetic treatise the "Shinsen zuinō," can be translated literally as

myelencephalon The myelencephalon or afterbrain is the most posterior region of the embryonic hindbrain, from which the medulla oblongata develops. Myelencephalon is from myel- (bone marrow or spinal cord) and encephalon (the vertebrate brain). Development ...

, but this term was used to refer to books that contained essays on poetry and figuratively means that it knows the "mind" of poetry.

References

*pgs. 237, 242-243 of ''Japanese Court Poetry'',

Earl Miner Earl Roy Miner (February 21, 1927 – April 17, 2004) was a professor at Princeton University, and a noted scholar of Japanese literature and especially Japanese poetry; he was also active in early modern English literature (for instance, his obi ...

, Robert H. Brower. 1961,

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

Press, LCCN 61-10925 {{DEFAULTSORT:Minamoto no, Shunrai Minamoto clan Nobility from Kyoto Deified Japanese men Imperial House of Japan 1055 births 1129 deaths 12th-century Japanese poets Hyakunin Isshu poets